Israel Matzav: Shocka: J Street opposes anti-Goldstone resolution

Shocka: J Street opposes anti-Goldstone resolution

J Street, the pro-Israel 'pro-peace' organization for Leftist Jews and intermarried persons has decided - surprise! - that it will oppose a resolution sponsored by Reps. Howard Berman (D-Cal) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla) that would strongly condemn the Goldstone report and call "on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the 'Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict in multilateral fora."

J Street has put out two statements on Goldstone, neither one of which actually condemned the report. But the same day that we reported this resolution had been introduced in Congress, J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami told Jeffrey Goldberg that his organization "refuses to embrace the Goldstone report." Naturally, we asked if J Street would therefore support the Ros-Lehtinen-Berman resolution.

The answer from J Street policy director Hadar Susskind was comical in its vagueness. "There's a lot of space between condemn and embrace," Susskind told me, after saying that he'd not had a chance to read the resolution that had been circulating in the House for over a week at that time. Indeed, there is a lot of space between condemn and embrace, and Spencer Ackerman reports that J Street will put out a statement that boldly falls somewhere in between then two. J Street will say it is "unable to support" the resolution, and instead offer a fantasy list of items it would support in a resolution on Goldstone -- none of which include condemnation of the report itself.

The Weekly Standard is also reporting that Judge Goldstone has written submitted a response to Berman's and Ros-Lehtinen's resolution. Yeah, sorry, I had to change that sentence. Goldstone didn't write it (by the way, that's nothing new for Goldstone - someone ought to ask him on Thursday if he's actually read the entire report that bears his name. It's remarkable similar to stuff put out by Human Rights Watch). You won't believe who did.

But it seems that certain elements of J Street have indeed embraced Goldstone and his report. Upon further inspection of the Goldstone letter, the actual author seems to be Morton H. Halperin, who serves on the J Street advisory council and is a senior adviser at George Soros's Open Society Institute. The original document can be downloaded here. (A check of the file's "properties" reveals the author as Morton H. Halperin.)

It does indeed.

Looks like that 'pro-Israel' sign is being put away permanently.

Israel Matzav: Shocka: J Street opposes anti-Goldstone resolution